The Tribe

The professionals in the publishing industry, by which I mean editors and literary agents, keep saying that platform is of great importance for getting published. As I posted before a platform is generally defined as a ready-made audience to which the published book can be sold. This is more important for non-fiction than for fiction, but should not be ignored for novelists.

How is this measured? It used to be the number of people on your mailing list, probably for a newsletter distribution. Nowadays it's the number of Facebook or Twitter friends/followers you have. It's the number of hits on your website. Some agents want you to give these numbers along with your proposal.

This has been something bugging me. My blogs are not popular, and despite several requests sent out to Facebook friends to like my author page, 57 friends. I don't do Twitter, and don't know that I will any time soon. My platform is...slightly better than nil. And I haven't figured out how to change that.

But I have seen one change of late in how far I'm reaching people with my "writerly" presence. That's the "Reach" statistics on a Facebook page. For my writer page, my reach had been hovering around 40 to 50 for a long time. On a good couple of days I might hit 60. Finally in May it began to creep up. I hit 83 on May 31, then dropped back slowly to in the 50s and 60s. Finally my free promotion of Doctor Luke's Assistant came. My reach went into the high 80s by the end of that. Then it hovered there for a few days, then took off. Right now it stands at 221, the third straight day over 200 after zooming around June 18.

I don't really know how Facebook's "Reach" algorithm works. It says it's for a week ending on such and such a day. So I don't really know which day the numbers are for, or if it's an average of those days, or a total for all of those days. If it's an average, that means I'm now up to reaching just over 30 people per day. Small tribe.

But at least the numbers are going in the right direction. That's the main thing. It's the start of a tribe, a platform. Long may it grow.

Getting Used to Presenting

In a little more than an hour I'll step before a packed conference room, with the video conferencing camera and screens running, and make a training presentation. At least, I hope the conference room will be packed. The topic of my presentation is: "Dealing with Regulated Floodplains: Part 1 - Floodplain Basics".

Floodplains have been a huge part of my civil engineering work in the last three years. Part of that has been detailed engineering analysis of floodplains. Another big part of it has been coaching our project managers through the process of developing in a floodplain. Another part has been working with a local city as their floodplain engineer, helping them comply with Federal regulations. It's worked, since they won an award in 2010 for their floodplain management activities.

I do these presentations as "brown bags"; that is, it is intended to be a lunch time presentation. However, since we have offices in three time zones, any of which may want to conference in to any given presentation, we do them at 1 PM Central Time. Almost no one eats their lunch at ours, maybe not at any of them. I usually eat my lunch after, since it's kind of hard to eat and present at the same time.

I've been making presentations like this in the company since 2001. At first they were for our small but growing department. Then we opened some of them up to other departments. When I moved to the training position in 2006, they went "global". For a while we did it at two different times. Now, with a down-sized company, one time is sufficient. So I've ben on-camera with these for five years.

The camera doesn't bother me. I barely know it's there. The audience doesn't bother me much. But the whole idea of presenting in general is not my favorite thing. I wouldn't mind getting up and reading something. But preparing a document to be read, which can fill a one hour training class, if a time consuming activity. It would take me two weeks to do it for a one hour class. So I present sort of extemporaneously, from notes and knowledge of the subject. I prepare mostly by knowing the subject, more than practicing what I'm going to say.

I've never been totally comfortable doing this. Nervousness? Not really, just always concerned that what comes out during the class will be truly beneficial to those who attend. A lot of the things I talk about are dry topics that don't lend themselves easily to lively discussions: construction specifications; floodplains; erosion control; construction management; drainage. I try to find ways to make them lively. Part of this is animation of the voice. Part of it is showing myself to be excited about the topic. None of it is easy. I have to make myself do this the way I do. It seems to work. People seldom fall asleep. And after one particularly animated class a few years ago, the CEO said to me, "I think you've found your calling."

Part of what I do during these classes is treat them as "media practice" for when I'll someday be on camera or microphone for promoting my author activities. If I can do it for engineering, why not for poetry? Or fiction? Or non-fiction historical/political books? Or Christian non-fiction? The topic may change, but the need to show poise and to not say anything stupid are the same. Today I get some more practice at that.

And, I have at least four (and maybe as many as nine) visitors coming from local governments to hear this. Let's hope that poise shows through.

Tell me what you think, please

Hey readers:

I just made a post over at my blog at davidatodd.com, concerning a new, more concentrated effort I'm thinking of making in my writing. I don't want to paste that in here. Would you mind following the link, reading it, titled "Citizen and Patriot", and letting me know what your thoughts are?

Thanks.

I am my own Chief Marketing Officer

In the old world…Authors created the product and relied on their publishing company to market it. But that world is dead.
–Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, recently posted to his blog: Four Reasons Why You Must Take Responsibility for Your Own Marketing. The post has generated over 200 comments, including mine.

I want everyone to know that I embrace the concept that an author must participate, even lead, in their own marketing effort. That doesn’t mean I like it, or want to do it. But do it I will.

It’s difficult to lose the training of my upbringing. We were taught that blowing your own horn was a bad thing. “Don’t brag” was one way it was put. “He that exalts himself will be humbled” was how a Higher Power put it, and one of the few biblical things repeated in the family. Heck, in Miss Dudley’s class in 4th grade I was nominated for room president. I voted against myself, and Susan Ehrens won by one vote. Granted, 4th grade class president is not a position of immense importance, but hopefully you get the idea.

So how’s a body trained to be humble, to stay in the background, to let others call attention to you ever going to break through the marketing wall? Darned if I know. They say to start a blog. I did that in December 2007, and have achieved 14 followers and an average of 400 non-unique page views per month. Those are pretty poor numbers. Obviously I’m doing something wrong there.

They say to join Facebook and other social media. So I joined Facebook, and have a little over 100 friends. I started a Facebook fan page earlier this month. At least, I guess that’s what I started. Actually my son created it for me. I still haven’t figured out the difference between a Facebook account and a Facebook fan page. I have 6 people who “liked” my page—does that mean 6 fans? And, there’s a button for me to like it. Is it against my training to like my own page? What will that look like to others who check to see who the 6 7 are who like my page?

They say join Twitter and gain a following. Haven’t done this yet. Twitter is blocked at the office (where I’m typing this). At home on week nights I have two hours of writing time, unless I totally ignore my wife and limit myself to less than 6 hours of sleep, in which case I can squeeze in four a week night. Saturdays require lots of home maintenance stuff and leaves little quality time of brain and body function for writing. Sundays might give me six hours, again with some loss of interaction with the wife. How in the world could I find time for meaningful Twitter work?

They say start a personal e-newsletter, describing your writing work and the items you are working on or have available. Give something away to everyone who subscribes to it. You get their e-mail address, send out a newsletter with some regularity, and hope some of them buy your new works when you announce them. See the time factor in the previous paragraph.

This probably sounds like a rant, and I suppose it is. How does a working, commuting author find time to both write and market? I haven’t found the balance yet. Maybe if I dug ditches all day I might find brainpower available in the evenings, but I work with my brain, and often those two hours are difficult to make productive.

What do you think? Any suggestions for how an author with a full-time job and home and family responsibilities can be his own Chief Marketing Officer?

My website

My son is helping me put together a writer's website. I say helping. He's doing the work, as I consult on what it is I want. I purchased the domain Sunday night; we picked a theme last night and began building it; it now has a few items there. Check it out: davidatodd.com.

We copied all the posts on An Arrow Through The Air to the blog section of the website. Not all the comments copied--at least they hadn't as of last night. I don't know what that means for me, for keeping this blog. I've enjoyed having it with its title, and with the Wesley quote. If I decide to make the other site my blog, we'll figure out a way to get those over there.

Why Do I Write?

Two different writers sites/groups that I visit on the Internet asked that question this week. Chip MacGregor, in his blog post on Wednesday, answered the question "Why do I write?" And The Writers View 2, in their Thursday question, asked us to answer, in a sentence, the question, "What is your motivation for writing?" Interesting that these two sites should ask basically the same question at the same time. They set me to thinking about my own motivation for writing, and how I got to the point I'm at now.

It started back in the late 90s, I guess. I wrote some letters to the editor, and a couple of political essays. And a couple of work-place ditties. At the same time an idea for a novel started floating around in my head. Almost instantaneously I saw the beginning and the ending. The connecting scenes came to mind a bit later. I made a start on it, getting 15,000 words typed by December 2000. Meanwhile an idea for a second novel started to come together.

By this time I was attending a writers critique group twice a month, sharing my essays and chapters. I began looking for writing advice on the web. My goal was to complete my novel and have it published. My goal was to tell the world a story; a Christian story that might encourage people and change some lives.

I completed that novel in January 2003, and began to rework it while at the same time market it. I attended my first writers conference in March 2003, just a regional conference in Oklahoma City. I learned a lot there, especially how difficult it would be to find a publisher--unless I wanted to self-publish, which I did not. I learned that publishers really weren't interested in writers who wanted to tell a story. They wanted writers who wanted careers as writers.

So I branched out. I found an outlet for some of my editorials in the local newspaper. When we moved from Bentonville to Bella Vista I changed writers groups to one that met weekly. Through that group I was able to get five feature articles in our local newspaper. I went to other writers conference and read other blogs. Since I prepared and wrote my own adult Sunday school lessons, I began to do these more formally with the intent of making them "publishable". The road to being published looked harder with each conference session I attended and each web page I read. But I began to diversify and write articles. Oh, year, somewhere along the way I became interested in writing poetry, and realized I could write it and should write it. And then in 2006 there was the short biography I wrote of one of Lynda's great-grandfathers.

That brings us to today. Novel 1 is finished, polished four times, and in the drawer biding its time. Novel 2 is at about 17,000 words on its way to 80,000, waiting for me to get back to it. My poetry book is finished, in the drawer waiting for me to decide how to market it. I've got lots of articles written, one published in print and 110 published at Internet sites with more on the way. I'm building a stable of articles. Whether these will develop and demonstrate a platform or simply be an exercise will be seen in the next few years.

So where does that leave me? I wanted to tell a story, but that's not what publishers wanted to buy, so I'm trying to do what the publishers want. But the writing bug has definitely bit me. I want my words to have an impact on the world, specifically to further the cause of Jesus Christ. I want my secular writings to be underpinned by a Christian worldview that comes out in very subtle ways. I want my Christian writings to be directly helpful to those of the faith.

I'm not sure where I stand. It's been an interesting journey so far, a journey that I'm not about to give up, but which I can't tell where I am on it. I hope someday I'll be able to write my autobiography and title it The Journey Was A Joy. Guess I'm still heading in that direction.

102,024 Page Views a Year

My writing at Suite101.com has, as I feared, taken up most of my creative writing time since I began writing for the site in late June. I'm up to 53 articles posted. My revenue is abysmal. So far I've earned $19.00 for about 43,000 words. Of course, since this is a revenue sharing site, if I never write another article, those I've already posted will continue to earn over time. Perhaps after a couple of years it will add up to a decent rate per word. At least I hope so.

But what's gratifying is the page views I'm getting. I don't know how I stack up against others at the site, but I'm pleased with mine. I track this on a spreadsheet, including a graph. Since daily page views fluctuate, I look more at 7-day page views, a rolling total of the number of total page views in the seven days ending on the latest day. For the seven days ending October 15, I had 1,962 page views, a record for me. And, that multiplied times 52 gives me 102,024 page views per year. This is the first time I've broken 100,000. The chart above shows this. Wish it were more readable, but it's just a screen capture of the spreadsheet graph. The blue line is the 7-day page views, magenta line the daily page views, and the black line is a trend line of the daily page views.

Now that is encouraging. My articles are being accessed 102 thousand times a year. That's with no growth, and no more articles published. I'm going to publish more articles, and the articles I have are all what they call "evergreen" articles; that is, they will be just as meaningful next month as they are this, next year as they are this. None are tied to seasonal things or current events such that they would drop in page views. Most of the page views are coming from search engine hits.

My latest article, The Intolerable Acts, in just two days had 69 page views and was my second best performing article. That leads me to believe maybe I'm getting the hang of this search engine optimization stuff, and my performance overall will improve at Suite.

Now, if only my revenue will take an upturn, I'll be a happy camper.

I'm Still Not Writing---but I'm Making Progress

Well, last night once again I didn't feel like writing. I spent a little more time in Father Daughter Day, finding most of the tweaks I had wanted to make and maybe an extra one or two. I read a couple of writing blogs I follow. But otherwise I just read and did crosswords and wasted time.

Today, on my to do list was writing that article for Suite101.com on preparing to give a deposition. I started it, but have mostly the outline and first paragraph or two done. I reserved the noon hour for that, but do you think I got it done? No, I read writing blogs and critiqued a poem at the Absolute Write Water Cooler. And, I found one more place to tweak in FDD. And I got all the edits made to my FDD master file.

In a way, I suppose that's progress. At least some of my time is still spent in writing activities. Along with what I said above, I shared a strategy for publication of FDD with an agent whose blog I read and comment on. He agreed with what I'm thinking of doing. No I just have to do it and see if it will work.

Meanwhile, my 47 articles at Suite 101 had 1559 page views in the last seven days (ending yesterday). That's over a rate of 81,000 page views a year. That may not be enough platform to convince an editor or agent to take a chance on my books, but it feels pretty good. I'm sure some of those page views, with come mostly from people searching for some topic using a search engine, may be nothing more than a quick look at the opening paragraph and going on to something else, but it still feels good.

Today, in my working hours, I completed two major tasks, and set about archiving my files for the period when I served as Centerton's city engineer (by contract with CEI). About four projects are unfinished and I can't archive them yet. Another six I have to keep here until I extract information from them for the second Centerton flood study, which I began work on this week. They they will go off to archive with their brethren. All these files consume about 25 feet of shelf space. When I'm finished archiving them, which will be late next week or the week after, I should be down to no more than 8 shelf-feet of files. That will feel good, and I'll be able to do without two book cased in my new, smaller office when we move in late October.

Time to prepare for the weekend. On Monday I give a presentation on the Crystal Bridges Museum flood plain work, to the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association annual convention. It's being held locally, and the presentation is at the overlook of the construction site. Then Tuesday-Wednesday I'll attend the convention in nearby Springdale. Another chopped-up week.

I Should Be Writing

Back from the funeral, no major household projects going on, reasonable workload at the office, no upcoming trip to prepare for, the checkbook mostly up to date, household finances needing only 30 minutes to bring them up to date. I should be writing. But I'm not.

Yesterday I posted one of my older poems for critique at the Absolute Write poetry forum. Three crits later it's sinking and will hit the oblivion of page 2 today. That caused me to pull out Father Daughter Day yesterday and go through it last night and mark edits that had either accumulated in my mind or that I saw as I read. That's done, and I'll type those edits today sometime. And I did a very minor critique of another person's poem yesterday.

More than a week ago I began a new article for Suite101.com, about preparing for a deposition. Since I had just done that, I thought it would make for a good article, quickly written. Then the funeral trip interrupted me, and I haven't felt like getting back to it. I even did some key word research using some Google tools, and it looks as if it will be a profitable article. Yet, I just don't feel like writing it.

I suppose I'll snap out of it soon. Maybe if I get those few entries made in my financial spreadsheet I'll feel freed-up to write again. I think what's holding me back is the utter futility of it all. And the realization I'm trying to build a platform that may or may not grow to the size I need. My articles on Suite 101 are getting page views at a current rate of 80,000 per year. That's good! Eighty-thousand people a year are reading my stuff. But almost none of those people are looking for my writing. They are looking for information on something, and happen to find mine by a search engine. So will an editor see all those hits and all those people reading my writing as evidence of a platform and quality writing, or as an accident?

Still, I've nothing else to do but plunge back in and get some more articles up. Three more and I begin earning a ten percent bonus. I could have three articles up in three days. I'll do it. I'll probably get that one article finished and post it tonight, and shoot for having two more up by Sunday. During our weekend trip I worked on the analysis of another Robert Frost poem. That will give me at least three articles.

I still need to articulate steps two and three of my platform-building plan. Maybe I'll make that my next post.